Conversation-Based E-Mail Messaging

ABSTRACT

A method and system for searching messages is disclosed that includes searching a message repository to identify a plurality of conversations that each include at least one message that is relevant to a search query. Alternatively, conversations as a whole may be relevant to a search query rather than individual messages. Each of the plurality of the identified conversations includes one or more messages sharing a common set of characteristics that meet predefined criteria and a conversation identifier. A list of conversations is created representing at least a subset of the identified conversations and a conversation is selected from that list. In that selected conversation, first messages are differentiated from second messages which may differentiate portions of text or messages that are relevant to the search query from those that are not.

RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/914,040, filed Aug. 6, 2004, entitled at filing as “IdentifyingMessages Relevant to a Search Query in a Conversation-Based EmailSystem,” which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 10/816,428, filed Mar. 31, 2004, entitled “Displaying ConversationsRelevant to a Search Query in a Conversation-Based Email System,” whichapplications are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.

This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/914,035, filed Aug. 6, 2004, entitled “Displaying Conversations in aConversation-Based Email System,” which application is incorporated byreference herein in its entirety.

This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/914,034, filed Aug. 6, 2004, entitled “Providing Snippets Relevant toa Search Query in a Conversation-Based Email System,” which applicationis incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/914,013, filed Aug. 6, 2004, entitled “A Browser-Based SpellChecker,” which application is incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/914,036, filed Aug. 6, 2004, entitled “Categorizing and SnoozingConversations in a Conversation-Based Email System,” which applicationis incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/914,014, filed Aug. 6, 2004, entitled “Displaying Conversation Viewsin a Conversation-Based Email System,” which application is incorporatedby reference herein in its entirety. This application is related to U.S.patent application Ser. No. 10/914,039, filed Aug. 6, 2004, entitled“Processing Messages in a Conversation-Based Email System,” whichapplication is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to the field of a client-servercomputer network system, and in particular, to a system and method for auser to manage a large number of messages in an efficient anduser-friendly manner.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Every day, people send and receive millions of email (also written as“e-mail”) messages over computer networks for business and leisure.Email, being convenient, easy to use and close to instantaneous in manycases, has become an extremely popular communication channel for peopleto exchange information.

Traditionally, email messages arriving at a user's email account aredisplayed by a dedicated email client or in web browser windowindividually, in a chronological order, e.g., the most recent messageappears at top of the browser window while the oldest one appears at thebottom of the browser window. However, it is common that multiplemessages sent by two or more people at different times may cover a sametopic. Viewing the messages together would assist the user inunderstanding the individual messages in the proper context.

It would be highly desirable to have a system and method of organizingand displaying a plurality of messages, including messages received byand messages sent by a user, according to their respective topics. Itwould also be highly desirable that all the messages relating to a sametopic, and that form part of same conversation, be presented intuitivelyso that the user is able to identify a particular message submitted by aspecific sender efficiently, and so that the user can see the messagesin the conversation in their context with respect to other messages inthe conversation.

SUMMARY

In one embodiment, a method of searching messages includes searching amessage repository to identify a plurality of conversations relevant toa search query, wherein each of the plurality of the identifiedconversations includes one or more messages sharing a common set ofcharacteristics that meet predefined criteria. Each of the plurality ofthe identified conversations also includes a respective conversationidentifier. A list of conversations is created representing at least asubset of the identified conversations. A conversation is selected fromthe list of conversations and first text of the selected conversation isdifferentiated from second text of the selected conversation.

In another embodiment, a method of searching messages includes searchinga message repository to identify a plurality of conversations that eachinclude at least one message that is relevant to a search query. Each ofthe plurality of the identified conversations includes one or moremessages sharing a common set of characteristics that meet predefinedcriteria and a respective conversation identifier. A list ofconversations is created representing at least a subset of theidentified conversations and a conversation is selected from the list.In the selected conversation, first messages of the selectedconversation are differentiated from second messages of the selectedconversation.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a better understanding of the nature and embodiments of theinvention, reference should be made to the Description of Embodimentsbelow, in conjunction with the following drawings in which likereference numerals refer to corresponding parts throughout the figures.

FIG. 1 schematically illustrates one embodiment of the client-serverbased network system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an overview flowchart illustrating how a conversationassistant generates the various forms for displaying the conversationsprovided by a conversation management system.

FIG. 3A is a flowchart illustrating how the conversation assistantgenerates a form hosting a list of conversations.

FIG. 3B is a schematic screenshot of a list of conversations in the“inbox” category according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4A is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the “more actions”pull-down list.

FIG. 4B is a screenshot of how a user moves a conversation from onecategory to another using the “more actions” pull-down list.

FIG. 5A is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the “add labels”pull-down list.

FIG. 5B is a screenshot of how a user adds a label to a conversationusing the “add labels” pull-down list.

FIG. 6A is a flowchart depicting how the conversation assistantgenerates a conversational view in response to the conversationmanagement system's display instructions.

FIG. 6B is a screenshot of a conversational view in which all themessages are displayed in a compacted mode according to one embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 6C is a screenshot of a conversational view in which some of themessages are displayed in the compacted mode and some are in an expandedmode according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6D is a screenshot of a conversational view in which all themessages are displayed in the expanded mode according to one embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 6E is a screenshot of a conversational view in which the messagesare displayed according to various embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 7A is a flowchart illustrating how the conversation assistantgenerates the various forms for displaying the conversations that matcha user's search request.

FIG. 7B is a screenshot comprising three conversations that match aquery term “Tahoe” according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7C is a screenshot of messages in a conversation matching or notmatching a query term and displayed in different modes according to oneembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating how the conversation assistantinteracts with a user to correct all the potentially misspelled words.

FIG. 9A is a screenshot of a conversation including a reply messagecomposed by the user.

FIG. 9B depicts a screenshot comprising three separate browsing windowsat different stages of the spell check process.

FIG. 10 depicts an embodiment of a conversation server.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart representing a method of processing a receivedmessage.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart representing a method of matching a message to aconversation.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart representing a method of assigning attributes toa message.

FIG. 14 is a flowchart representing a method of assigning attributes toa conversation.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart representing a method of searching forconversations and generating a representation of an identifiedconversation.

FIG. 16 depicts a message database.

FIG. 17 depicts a user database and an index for a particular user.

FIG. 18 depicts a set of data structures used for identifying theconversation corresponding to a received message and for determiningattributes to be associated with the received message.

FIG. 19 depicts an embodiment of a conversation server.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

The present invention is directed to a client-server system andcorresponding method of organizing and displaying messages sent to andby a user.

FIG. 1 schematically illustrates one embodiment of the client-serversystem. The system includes a conversation management system 102, acommunication network 106 and a plurality of clients 104. A conversationincludes one or more relevant messages covering a conversation topic. Aswill be described below, additional criteria, beyond the conversationtopic, may be used to determine which messages are part of each distinctconversation. The senders and recipients of the messages areparticipants of the conversation. All the messages directed to a user ofthe conversation management system 102 are grouped into a plurality ofconversations and presented to the user in a conversation-based format,individually or jointly. More detailed discussion about theimplementation of the conversation management system 102 is providedbelow.

A client 104 includes a browser 108 and a conversation assistant 110.The browser 108 can be a general purpose Internet browser (sometimescalled a Web browser) having a browser window used for displaying theconversations, or it can be a dedicated browser application having awindow for displaying conversations. The conversations and messages inthe conversations may be rendered by the browser 108 using the hypertextmarkup language (HTML) or any other appropriate rendering methodology.After a user submits a request through the browser 108 to theconversation management system 102 to access messages stored in hispersonal account, the conversation management system 102 identifies aplurality of conversations in the user's personal account according tothe user's request and transfers them as well as a set of displayinstructions back to the client 104. The conversation assistant 110, inresponse, generates one or more forms following the displayinstructions, each form including information of some of theconversations. The forms are then submitted to and rendered by thebrowser 108. In another embodiment, the conversation assistant 110 mayalternatively exist and operate in the conversation management system102.

FIG. 2 is an overview flowchart illustrating how the conversationassistant 110 generates various forms for displaying conversationsprovided by the conversation management system 102. After receiving aplurality of conversations and associated display instructions at step202, the conversation assistant 110 determines, at step 204, whether theuser has requested multiple conversations or an individual conversation.If the user asks for multiple conversations, the conversation assistant110, at step 206, generates a form that hosts a list of conversations,each conversation occupying one row in the form. For each row in theform, the conversation assistant 110 also generates a set of columns andassociated features to be displayed according to the displayinstructions at step 208. More details on how the information in thecolumns and associated features are rendered are provided below inconjunction with FIGS. 3A and 3B.

If the user requests an individual conversation, the conversationassistant 110 then generates a distinct form hosting a series ofmessages that are associated with the conversation at step 210. At step212, the conversation assistant 110 generates a sub-form and anassociated set of features to be displayed for each message followingthe corresponding display instructions. More details on how theconversation assistant renders such sub-forms and associated featuresare provided below in conjunction with FIGS. 6A-6D.

After generating a form hosting a list of conversations or an individualconversation, the conversation assistant 110 generates a form hosting aset of system-defined categories at step 214. Each system-definedcategory may be associated with zero or more conversations. In oneembodiment, a system-defined category is an attribute that theconversation management system 102 assigns to a conversation either inresponse to a user action or when predefined criteria are met. Forinstance, the system associates a “trash” attribute with a conversationwhen the user marks the conversation for deletion, but has not yet takenthe steps required to permanently remove the conversation from theuser's mail account. More specifically, the conversation managementsystem 102 attaches the attribute “trash” to the conversation andremoves an existing attribute, e.g., “inbox”, from the conversation, ifnecessary. It is noted that certain system-defined categories may bemutually exclusive. In another example, the system may automaticallyassociate an “InBox” attribute and an “Unread” attribute with a newlyreceived incoming message. A more detailed discussion of thesystem-defined categories is provided below in conjunction with FIGS. 4Aand 4B.

Next, the conversation assistant 110 generates another form hosting aset of user-defined labels at step 216. FIG. 3B shows a group box 347 inwhich this form is displayed. Each user-defined label may be associatedwith zero or more conversations. In one embodiment, a user-defined labelis an attribute that can be associated with specified conversations. Theconversations to which the user-defined label is assigned may bedetermined by specific user actions or by the operation of a filter orsimilar mechanism. Unlike the system-defined categories, these labelsare defined by the user arbitrarily and they are not mutually exclusive.In other words, a conversation can be associated with multiple labels atthe same time. For example, there may be two labels, “shopping list” and“Thanksgiving,” in a user's personal account. The label “shopping list”may be assigned by the user, or by a filter set up by the user, toshopping-related conversations, while the label “Thanksgiving” may beassigned to conversations regarding Thanksgiving activities, includingThanksgiving shopping. Since a label is defined by a user, the user canalso delete the label. A more detailed discussion of user-defined labelsis provided below in conjunction with FIGS. 5A and 5B. With respect togroup box 347, when the user selects (e.g., clicks on) a user-definedlabel in group box 347, the conversation assistant 110 submits to theconversation management system a query to locate conversationsassociated with the user-selected label. That query is then executed andthe user is presented with a listing of such conversations, if any.

The conversation management system 102 and the conversation assistant110 work together to allow a user to search the messages in the user'smail account and to present the search results in a highly intuitivefashion. The conversation management system 102 extracts informationfrom the user's email account or processes a message being composed bythe user, while the conversation assistant 110 renders the informationprepared by the conversation management system 102. In other embodimentsa different division of duties between the conversation managementsystem 102 and the conversation assistant 110 may be used. Because manyof the tasks performed by the system can be performed by either theconversation management system 102 or the conversation assistant 110 orby the two working together, these two components are sometimes hereinreferred to jointly as the “conversation system.”

The conversation system (102 and/or 110) may generate a form hosting aset of searches submitted by the user at step 218 so that the user canrevisit (or more accurately, regenerate) recent search results. A moredetailed description of search-based conversation list generation isprovided below in conjunction with FIGS. 7A-7C. Additionally, theconversation system may generate a form (e.g., the form displayed ingroup box 349 in FIG. 3B) hosting a set of conversations visited by theuser recently at step 220. This feature is analogous to the back buttonof a web browser. At step 222, the conversation assistant 110 submitsthe forms to the browser 108 for displaying.

Steps 214 through 220 may be performed in many possible orders otherthan the order shown in FIG. 2. In some embodiments, some of these formgenerating steps may be omitted.

Generating List of Conversations

Referring now to FIG. 3A, the conversation management system 102generates a list of conversations (step 302), for instance in responseto the user or client requesting an inbox view of the user's mailaccount. As will be explained in more detail below, lists ofconversations are generated by performing a search of the user's mailaccount. To generate the list of conversations for an inbox view, theuser's mail account is searched for conversations associated with an“InBox” attribute (sometimes called a label). The conversationmanagement system 102 then prepares information about thoseconversations for display at step 304, as will be described in moredetail next. In addition, the conversation management system generates alist of user-selectable actions and a list of user-selectable labels atstep 305. The user-selectable labels may include system-defined labelsas well as user-defined labels. The discussion below in connection withFIGS. 4 and 5 illustrates the usage of these user-selectable lists. Theresulting information is then sent to the conversation assistant forrendering at step 306.

At step 304, the conversation management system 102 repeatedly conductsa series of steps (from step 306 to step 324) to generate a set offields for each conversation in the list of conversations. In someembodiments, these fields may be rendered by the conversation assistant110 in columns to enable a user to easily scan the conversation list.

For each conversation and an associated set of messages, theconversation management system 102 first generates a sender list at step307. The sender list comprises a plurality of sender identifiers, eachidentifier corresponding to a sender who has authored at least one ofthe messages. A sender may be identified by his first name, last name,full name, email address, picture or a unique icon or a combinationthereof. In some embodiments, if at least two senders have equivalentfirst names, then a sufficient portion of each sender's last name inincluded in the respective sender identifiers to distinguish one senderfrom another. For example, if two senders had the first name of Paul andlast names which different in the first letter, the senders could bedistinguished using a concatenation of Paul with the first letter of thelast name (e.g., Paul and Paul). One of ordinary skill in the art willrecognize other ways to identify two senders having the same first name.In other embodiments, a sender's identifier could be based oninformation associated with the particular sender that resides in auser's contact list. In still other embodiments, a user may createnicknames to appear in the sender list for specific senders. If a senderhas authored multiple messages in the conversation, his identifiernevertheless appears only once in the sender list. In one embodiment,the sender identifiers in the list are ordered according to theirrespective messages' arrival time at the system 102. In anotherembodiment, the sender identifiers in the list are orderedalphabetically according to their respective names. Next, theconversation management system 102 formats the sender list so as tohighlight one or more sender identifiers in the list according to thedisplay instructions at step 308. The term “highlight” is used here tomean displaying in a visually distinctive manner, such as bolding,underlining, changing background color, changing font color, changingthe font, etc. Furthermore, in this context, the term “highlight” meansgenerating formatting information for displaying something (e.g., aspecified portion of text) in a distinctive manner. For example, in someembodiments, a sender's name is formatted to be displayed in boldfacedcharacters if his message has not been viewed or marked as read by theuser.

In some embodiments, the conversation assistant receives or has accessto pictures of one or more of the people listed in the sender listand/or recipient lists of conversations. When the user views either alist of conversations or an individual conversation, and positions acursor over a name or identifier in the sender list, a picture of thatsender is displayed. In some embodiments, the same functionality isprovided, when viewing a conversation, for listed message recipients.This feature may be particularly useful for email systems used by largeorganizations.

In some embodiments, if the user himself has authored at least onemessage in the conversation, the conversation management system 102replaces the user's name or other identifier in the sender list with aunique character string or icon or other output cue for him as hisidentifier in the sender list at step 310. One option for the uniquecharacter string is a self-referencing identifier in a particularlanguage. For example, the pronoun “me” in English can be used forrepresenting the user in the sender list. This feature is more usefulthan identifying the sender by his first name in the sender list (which,of course, may be done in alternate embodiments), since many peopleshare the same first names. Representing the user by a unique identifieralso helps the user to easily identify the conversations in which he hasactively participated by contributing at least one message.

If many people have contributed messages to a conversation, the senderlist may become too long to fit into the limited space in a browserwindow. This is especially true if one or more of the senders in thesender list are identified by their email address. If so, theconversation management system 102 prioritizes the senders in the listof senders based on various information to identify a subset of thesender list to display in the browser window at step 312. In oneembodiment, the subset includes at least the sender of a last message inthe conversation and, where applicable, the sender of a message that hasnot been viewed or marked as read by the user. In another embodiment,the subset includes the sender of a first received message in theconversation, the sender of a last received message in the conversation,and zero or more additional senders selected in accordance with aprioritization or scoring methodology. In some embodiments, a higherpriority is given to the senders of messages arriving later in time.This type of prioritization tends to increase the likelihood thatsenders of unread messages will be displayed. Other types ofprioritization schemes could be used as well. In some embodiments, whenthe sender list identifies only a subset of the message senders in theconversation the sender list includes an ellipsis mark “ . . . ” orother symbol indicating that the sender list is incomplete. In someembodiments, where there is more than one sender whose messages have notbeen viewed or marked as read by the user, the subset identifies as manyof those senders as allowed by the available space.

At step 314, the conversation management system 102 creates a messagenumber indicator for the conversation, indicating the number of messagesin the conversation, excluding messages permanently deleted or markedfor deletion. The message number indicator may be a number in a pairparentheses, e.g., “(3)” represents that there are three messages in theconversation. In some embodiments, when a conversation includes only onemessage, a message number is not generated for the conversation. Themessage number indicator can also be an icon. The icon can be colorcoded to provide additional information, e.g., to indicate how manymessages in the conversation remain unread (i.e., not viewed or markedas read). Next, the conversation management system 102 generates aconversation topic for the conversation being processed, at step 316.Typically, the conversation topic is the subject of the first message inthe conversation or a truncated version of the subject if it exceeds apredefined length. In another embodiment, the conversation topic isdetermined by heuristically examining the contents of the first message,or, alternatively, more than the first message. In one embodiment, ifthe conversation includes at least one message having the Unreadattribute, both the message number identifier and the conversation topicare highlighted in the browser window to attract the user's attention.In another embodiment, only the conversation topic is highlighted toindicate one or more unread messages.

According to an established email standard, a message can be sent to atleast three classes of recipients, one primary class of recipients whoseaddresses are listed in the “To:” field and two secondary classes ofrecipients whose addresses are listed in the “Cc:” field or the “Bcc:”field. Accordingly, the conversation management system 102 at step 318creates a recipient status indicator for the user, which is anotherindicator of the user's participation in the conversation. In oneembodiment, a conversation in which the user is a primary recipient ofany message is marked with a first distinctive indicator, such as “>>”,a conversation in which the user is a secondary recipient of at leastone message and is not a primary recipient of any messages is markedwith a second distinctive indicator, such as “>”, and a conversation inwhich the user is not explicitly listed as a recipient of any message(e.g., because the messages were sent to a group or mailing list)receives no special marks. In other embodiments, conversations in whichthe user is a primary recipient of at least one message andconversations in which the user is only a secondary recipient may berepresented in other visually distinctive ways, such as by highlightingone or more portions of the rows representing these conversations. Inanother embodiment, a conversation in which the user is the only primaryrecipient of at least one message is marked with a first distinctiveindicator, such as “>>”, a conversation in which at least one messagewas sent directly to the user's email address and not a mailing list ismarked with a second distinctive indicator, such as “>”, and aconversation in which the user is not explicitly listed as a recipientof any message (e.g., because the messages were sent to a group ormailing list) receives no special marks.

In some embodiments, the conversation management system 102 creates asnippet of the conversation at step 320. The snippet provides the userwith a preview of the contents of the conversation without the userhaving to open the conversation. In one embodiment, the snippet isgenerated from the most recent message in the conversation. In anotherembodiment, the snippet is extracted from the first message (i.e., theoldest message) in the conversation. In yet another embodiment, thesnippet is extracted from all the messages in the conversation accordingto predefined heuristic rules, e.g., listing a set of keywords appearingmost frequently in the conversation. If the conversation managementsystem 102 is preparing a list of conversations in response to a searchsubmitted by the user, it creates a snippet including a highlightedportion that matches the user-submitted query terms at step 322, whichmay be similar in one or more respects to the snippets included searchresults returned by a search engine such as the Google™ (trademark ofGoogle Inc.) search engine.

Finally, the conversation management system 102 identifies a date/timevalue for a conversation at step 324. This date/time value oftendictates the display order of a list of conversations in the browserwindow. In some embodiments, each conversation in a list ofconversations, is assigned a date/time equal to the date/time of themost recent message that matches the search criteria used to generatethe list of conversations. For instance, if a user-specified searchquery is used (e.g., “Lake Tahoe”), then for each matching conversationin the list of conversations, the assigned date/time is the date/time ofthe most recent message matching the user-specified search query. Inanother example, if the search criteria is “Inbox” (i.e., conversationshaving at least one message assigned the Inbox label), then thedate/time assigned to each conversation in the list of conversations isthe date/time of the most recent message that is associated with theInbox label. In some embodiments, the conversations in the list ofconversations are listed in reverse chronological order with respect totheir assigned date/time values (i.e., with the most recentconversations being listed first). As used herein, “date/time” valuerefers to whatever date value and/or time value is associated with aparticular message. Dates and/or times may be associated with messagesbased on the date and/or time of its creation, transmission, receipt orother event.

In other embodiments, other methods or criteria may be used to assign adate/time to each conversation in a list of conversations, and othermethods may be used to order the conversations in accordance with theirdate/time values. For instance, in some embodiments, when using anadvanced search query tool, the user is given the option of searchingfor conversations whose date/time falls within a specified time window(and that meet other user-specified search requirements, if any). Theresulting list of conversations is listed in accordance with the lengthof time between a user specified target date or target date/time and thedate/time of each conversation in the list. Thus, conversations beforeand after the target date or date/time may be interleaved in theresulting list of conversations.

FIG. 3B is a schematic screenshot of a list of conversations in the“inbox” category according to one embodiment of the present invention.At the top left corner of the screenshot, there is a “Compose Mail” link340. The user clicks on this link to start writing a new message. Nextto the link 340, there are a textbox 341 and a “Search Mail” button 342.After the user submits one or more query terms through the textbox 341and then clicks on the “Search Mail” button 342, the system generates anew display listing conversations matching the query terms. In someembodiments, matches can occur by the presence of one or more synonymsof a respective query term. In some embodiments, matches can occur basedon the root of the respective query term. For example, a search for“book” could be matched by the words “book”, “books”, and “booking”.Please refer to FIGS. 7A and 7B for details. Next to button 342 are twopull-down lists: the “more actions” list 344 and the “add label” list345. Please refer to FIGS. 4 and 5, respectively, for more details aboutthese two pull-down lists. Right below the “Compose Mail” link 340,there are a series of group boxes, each box corresponding to a formgenerated by one of the steps 214-220 in FIG. 2. For instance, the groupbox 346 displays system-defined categories, including “Inbox”,“Starred”, “Sent Mail”, “Drafts”, “All Mail”, “Spam” and “Trash”, etc.In other embodiments, the set of system-defined categories may bedifferent, including a subset of these categories and/or additionalcategories. In some embodiments, the “Starred” category includesconversations in which the user plans to be actively involved, e.g., bysending messages to other participants, which is similar to a “To Do”list. Thus, in one embodiment, a message may be flagged with a star, sothat a user can, for example, search for starred messages. In oneembodiment, the “All Mail” category includes all the conversations thatare not in the “Spam” or “Trash” categories. Note that since the currentscreenshot displays only conversations belonging to the “Inbox”category, the corresponding link in the group box 346 has beenhighlighted.

The main area of the schematic screenshot in FIG. 3B is a formcomprising a list of conversations 360, each conversation occupying onerow in the form. Each row further includes a checkbox 362, a sender list364, a recipient status indicator 366, a conversation topic and snippets368 and a date/time value 369. In other embodiments, the set of fieldsfor each conversation row may be different, including a subset of thesefields and/or additional fields. In some embodiments, all rows have auniform height when a list of conversations is displayed. In otherembodiments, heights may be variable to accommodate various snippetlengths. The checkbox 362 is checked by the user if the user decides tomove the corresponding conversation from one system-defined category,e.g., “Inbox”, to another one, e.g., “Trash”, or if the user decides toattach a user-defined label to the corresponding conversation. Thedefinitions of other columns or fields in the form have been given abovein conjunction with FIG. 3A. Note that there are two messages in thefirst conversation and a sender S2 has been highlighted in the firstrow, suggesting that the message sent by S2 has not yet been read ormarked as read. In contrast, the second conversation includes fourmessages that have all been read or marked as read and therefore nothingis highlighted in the second row. In some embodiments, a visualindicator for starred status is provided. If any message in aconversation has the starred status, then the “Inbox” will provide avisual indicator that the conversation contains at least one starredmessage.

Though not shown, in one embodiment, the browser window represented byFIG. 3B includes a persistently displayed message compose area,associated addressing and subject fields, and other options and fieldsthat might typically be associated with a form that allows composing andsending a message. Such an area, for example, is displayed below thelist of conversations 360. Thus, in one embodiment, within a single userinterface (e.g., a browser window), a user may have the option to view alist of conversations and also compose a new message without beingrequired to open a new window (e.g., a message compose window) andwithout removing the list of conversations from the current browserwindow.

FIG. 4A is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the “more actions”pull-down list 344. After a user clicks on the pull-down list, thebrowser displays a list of system-defined actions at step 402. The userselects a particular action in the pull-down list and at least oneconversation in the conversation list at step 404. The browser thenassociates the user-selected conversations with the user-selectedactions at step 406 and sends them back to the conversation managementsystem for further processing at step 408. If the user selected actioncauses the user-selected conversations to be removed from the previouslydisplayed list of conversations, the conversation assistant receives anew list of conversations from the conversation management system, andthe conversation assistant displays the new list of conversations in thebrowser at step 410.

Referring to FIG. 4B, shows a change from the schematic screenshot ofFIG. 3B that results when the user checks the checkbox 413 of the secondconversation, clicks on the “more actions” pull-down list, and picks theitem “spam” 415. As a result, the second conversation will be removedfrom the “Inbox” category and the “Spam” category will have a newmember. Note that some of the actions in the pull-down list such as“Ignore” and “Snooze” do not have a corresponding category. Both“Ignore” and “Snooze” correspond to the “All Mail” category.Specifically, when the user checks the checkbox of a conversation andthen clicks on the “Ignore” item, the conversation will be transferredto the “All Mail” category. If any new message associated with the“ignored” conversation arrives, the system still associates the newmessage with the conversation, but it does not bring the conversationback to the user's attention automatically. However, the user can stopignoring the conversation and bring it back into the “Inbox” category byvisiting the “All Mail” category, checking the checkbox of the ignoredconversation, and then selecting the “Inbox” item in the corresponding“more actions” pull-down list. As indicated by this example, differentcategories' pull-down lists may have different sets of action items. The“Snooze” action item allows the user to ignore a conversationtemporarily by setting a triggering condition, which can be time-driven,e.g., a conversation should disappear from the “Inbox” category for aperiod of time (e.g., one hour, one day, one week, and so on) and thencome back automatically, or event-driven, e.g., a conversation shouldnot come back to the “Inbox” category until the number of uncheckedmessages has reached a predetermined limit, or a particular person hascontributed a message to the conversation, a message is received thatspecifies the user as a primary recipient, or a received messagecontains a specified word or phrase. One of ordinary skill in the artwill recognize other trigger conditions which could be used.

Categorizing Conversations

FIG. 5A is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the “add labels”pull-down list 345. After a user clicks on the pull-down list, thebrowser displays a list of user-defined labels for him to choose at step502. The user selects a particular label in the pull-down list and atleast one conversation in the conversation list at step 504. The browserthen associates the user-selected conversations with the user-selectedlabel at step 506 and sends them back to the conversation managementsystem for further processing at step 508. As a result, a list of theconversations associated with the user-selected label will include theconversations associated with that label in step 510. As described inmore detail below, when a label or attribute is associated with aconversation, one or more entries are added to an index 1710 (FIGS. 17,18) to enable searches for conversations bearing that label to belocated. In some embodiments, the label or attribute is also added toone or more entries in a conversation database 1808 (FIG. 18). In someembodiments, the labels associated with a conversation are displayedwhen the user views the conversation. In some embodiments, the labelsassociated with each conversation in a list of conversations aredisplayed in the row of information provided for each conversation inthe list.

FIG. 5B is a schematic screenshot showing the browser window resultingwhen the user checks the checkbox 512 of the second conversation andthen clicks on the “add labels” pull-down list and picks the item “Label2” 514. (It is noted that “Label 2” represents a user specified labelname.) This will cause “Label 2” to be associated with the checkedconversation. As a result, the checked conversation may be included inthe search results produced in response to queries for messagesassociated with “Label 2.” In some embodiments, the labels associatedwith each conversation in a list of conversations are displayed in thecorresponding row of the form, and thus “Label 2” will be displayed inthe row corresponding to the conversation associated with “Label 2” instep 506. Of course, it will be recognized by those skilled in the artthat the user can input customized label names and/or the system mayprovide predefined labels.

Viewing a Conversation

FIG. 6A is a flowchart depicting how the conversation assistantgenerates a conversational view in response to the conversationmanagement system's display instructions. In some embodiments, some ofthe actions shown in FIG. 6A, such as actions for formatting theconversation information to be displayed, are performed by theconversation management system prior to sending the conversationinformation to the conversation assistant in the client.

The conversation assistant first receives a series of messages belongingto a particular conversation as well as an associated set of displayinstructions at step 602. The conversation assistant, at step 604,identifies the topic of the conversation as well as any system-definedcategories and user-defined labels associated with the conversation.Based on the categories and labels, the conversation, at step 606,generates a list of user-selectable actions and a list ofuser-selectable labels, respectively. These two lists are similar to thetwo pull-down lists 344 and 345 shown in FIG. 3B. In one embodiment, thelist of user-selectable actions includes only actions that areapplicable to the particular conversation (i.e., the conversation to bedisplayed). Therefore, a conversation that is already in the “Trash”category cannot be associated with the “Trash” category again. By thesame token, the list of user-selectable labels only includes labels thathave not yet been associated with the particular conversation.

Starting from step 608, the conversation assistant generates a sub-formfor each individual message in the conversation, the sub-form includingat least a detailed message header and a message body. As used herein,message body refers to the message created by the user including thesubject reference, and excludes any system information added to themessage by the messaging software. Each detailed message header includesthe names and/or addresses of the sender and all the primary andsecondary recipients, the subject of the message, a set of message-levelactions and a date/time value. One of the message-level actions includesan option to view the message in its original format including routinginformation and other messaging system provided information such as“Mime-Version:”, “Content-Type” and the like. The conversation assistantalso creates a concise message header from the detailed message headerat step 610. The concise message header includes the identifiers of thesender and the recipients. In some embodiments, the recipients areexcluded from the concise message header. If the user is in therecipient list, the conversation assistant utilizes a unique characterstring or icon as his identifier at step 610, which is similar to theuser's identifier in the sender list. For example, the pronoun “me” inEnglish can be used to represent the user in the concise message headerat step 612. If the message is the first one to identify a particularrecipient (i.e., in the primary or secondary recipient fields of themessage header) in this conversation, the conversation assistant willhighlight the recipient's identifier in the concise message header atstep 614. On the other hand, in some embodiments, when a recipientpreviously included in the list of recipients is no longer included, theconversation assistant will display the recipient's identifier in avisually distinguishing manner, for example, a “ghost” font. In otherembodiments, the concise message header includes a sender identifier, aportion of the message, and a date/time representation of the message.

Next, the conversation assistant decides how to display the sub-form atstep 616. If the message associated with the sub-form has not beenviewed or marked as read by the user, the sub-form is displayed in anexpanded mode, i.e., both the concise message header and the completemessage body are displayed at step 618. If the message has been viewedor marked as read, the sub-form, by default, is displayed in a compactedmode, containing only the concise message header and a portion of themessage body (e.g., the first few lines of the message) at step 620. Theuser can subsequently expand the compacted sub-form by clicking on it.Similarly, the sub-form does not show the detailed message header, butdoes include an option for the user to choose if he wants to see thedetailed message header at step 622. Finally, the conversation assistantat step 624 creates a set of reply options at the bottom of thesub-form, e.g., “Reply”, “Reply to All” and “Forward”. In someembodiments, a subset of the actions described above are performed foreach message in the conversation. In some embodiments one or moreaddition formatting actions are performed.

FIG. 6B is a schematic screenshot of the second conversation in FIG. 3Baccording to one embodiment of the present invention. The top and leftportions of the screenshot are identical to that of FIG. 3B. But thelist of conversations 360 has been replaced by a list of messages 640.On top of the list of messages are the conversation's topic “Topic 2”630, all the user-defined labels 632 associated with the conversationand an “Expand All Messages” button 634. Since the four messages havebeen viewed or marked as read by the user, the top three messages in thelist are displayed in the compacted mode and only the last (and the mostrecent) one is displayed in the expanded mode. In some embodiments, whenthere are no unread messages (i.e., which have not been viewed or markedas read by the user), messages in the conversation which have beenmarked as starred are also displayed in expanded mode. This provides avisual effect that all the messages in the conversation are piledtogether. Each compacted sub-form displays a concise message header 641and a snippet 643 such as the first few words of the message body. Insome embodiments, senders in the concise message header are identifiedin color such that the text representation for each sender is presentedin a different color. This aids in distinguishing senders in a displayedconversation. In some embodiments, the colors are generated by thesystem until the system runs out of colors to associate with senders. Insome embodiments, the colors are associated per conversation, such thatthe same sender may have a different color associated with it dependingon the conversation being displayed. Note that all the recipients arehighlighted in the concise message header 641 since this is the firstmessage of the conversation. In contrast, only one identifier “S1” ishighlighted in the second compacted sub-form since this is first messagein which S1 is a participant in the conversation. The expanded sub-formincludes a complete message body 645, a “More options” link 647, whichcauses the detailed message header to be display when selected, and alist of reply options 649. Since the last message was sent by S4, one ofthe reply options is “Reply to S4”, which alerts the user that a replywill be addressed to S4.

In some embodiments, when the number of messages in a conversationexceeds a threshold value (e.g., eight or ten messages), and a pluralityof consecutive messages in the conversation are to be displayed in acompacted sub-form (e.g., messages marked as read, in a conversationselected from an Inbox list of conversations), these messages aredisplayed in a second compacted sub-form that includes no text, and thusno sender list and no snippet. Instead, the second compacted sub-formsrepresent each of these messages with a small bar. The visual effect isthat these sub-forms appear like the edges of cards in a deck of cards.In some embodiments, the first and last messages in a conversation arenever shown in the second compacted sub-form, and more generally certainmessages are excluded from being represented by the second compactedsub-form such as those messages having the “starred” label. The secondcompacted sub-form is used to facilitate viewing conversations havinglarge numbers of messages. This same methodology can be used forrepresenting the messages in a conversation matching a user-specifiedsearch query, where the conversation has more than a threshold number ofmessages. In this case, the messages to be represented by the secondcompacted sub-form are groups of consecutive messages that do not matchthe search query.

FIG. 6C is a schematic screenshot that is similar to the one shown inFIG. 6B except that (1) the first sub-form 650 is displayed in anexpanded mode after the user clicks on the sub-form, (2) the lastsub-form includes the detailed message header 660, and (3) a messagereply form 670 is attached to the last sub-form after the user clicks onthe “Reply to S4” link. In one embodiment, a text box for replying to amessage (e.g., the last message) in a conversation may be persistentlydisplayed in association with that message when a user is viewing aconversation's contents. In other words, the message reply form 670 isdisplayed and the reply text box associated therewith are accessible toa user without requiring a user to click the “Reply to S4” link. Inother embodiments, a message reply form may be persistently displayedfor all of the messages in a conversation, or for all messages displayedin an expanded mode.

The first expanded sub-form 650 is structurally the same as the lastsub-form shown in FIG. 6B. It includes a concise message header, a “MoreOptions” link, a message body and a set of reply options at the bottomof the sub-form. The detailed message header 660, in addition to themessage sender and recipients' e-mail addresses or other identifiers,includes a list of actions that the user can take. For example, the“Trash this message” action 661 allows the user to remove the messagefrom the conversation. The message reply form 670 by default onlyincludes S4's address in the “To:” field since the sender of the messageto which the user is replying is S4. However, the message reply formprovides the user with additional options (e.g., “add Cc”, “add Bcc”) ifthe user would like to send the reply message to more recipients. Themessage reply form 670 also allows the user to edit the subject of theoriginal message and attach a document to the reply message.

FIG. 6D is a schematic screenshot of the conversation shown in FIG. 6Bafter the user clicks on the “Expand All Messages” button 634 (or button743, FIG. 7C). As a result, all four messages 680 are displayed in theexpanded mode. Note that the text in the button 634 changes to “CompactAll Messages”. The display of the conversation returns to the formatshown in FIG. 6B after the user clicks on the button 634 again.

FIG. 6E is a schematic screenshot of a conversation illustrating some ofthe features described earlier. In particular, FIG. 6E illustrates at682 an example of the second compacted sub-form used when the number ofmessages in a conversation exceeds a threshold value. Although the useris not able to see any header information for those messages, the usercan still see how many message are in this second compacted sub-form. Insome embodiments, messages on either end of the messages in secondcompacted sub-form are shown in the compacted sub-form which shows theconcise message header as illustrated by concise messages headers 684and 686. In some embodiments and as illustrated in FIG. 6E, the concisemessage header includes the sender, a portion of the message, and adate/time value of the message without showing the other recipients ofthe message. An example of the “starred” feature can be seen at message688. The star in message 688 differs from the other messages in that itsstar is filled in, indicating that this message has a starred status,whereas the others do not. Of course, any visual indicator whichprovides a differentiating status could be used and the concept is notlimited to a “star” and whether that star is “filled in” or not. Asdescribed above, a message having a starred status is displayed in oneembodiment in expanded mode when a conversation is displayed and thereare no unread messages (as in FIG. 6E). In another embodiment, if therehad been unread or not viewed messages, then the starred message 688would be displayed in the compacted sub-form, but not the secondcompacted sub-form such as those messages at 682. Other embodimentsforesee different permutations, such as always seeing the starredmessages in expanded mode regardless of the presence of any unread ornot viewed messages.

Using Queries to Locate, List and Display Conversations

As mentioned above, a user may search for conversations that match auser specified query. The conversation management system 102 and theconversation assistant 110 work together to generate search resultscorresponding to the query and to present the results to the user in ahighly intuitive fashion. FIG. 7A is a flowchart illustrating how theconversation assistant 110 generates the various forms for displayingthe conversations that match a user's search request. In someembodiments, some of the actions shown in FIG. 7A, such as actions forformatting the conversation information to be displayed, are performedby the conversation management system prior to sending the conversationinformation to the conversation assistant in the client.

At step 702, the conversation assistant 110 receives informationrepresenting a plurality of conversations matching a search query (whichmay contain one or more query terms) and associated display instructionsfrom the conversation management system 102. At step 704, theconversation assistant 110 generates a form that hosts a list ofconversations, each conversation occupying one row in the form. For eachrow in the form, the conversation assistant 110 also generates a snippetthat contains a matched query term at step 706. In some embodiments, theconversation assistant 110 highlights with the snippets terms that matchany of the query terms in the search query. At step 710 the list ofconversations is displayed. FIG. 7B is a schematic screenshot of a listof conversations produced in accordance with these steps. In someembodiments, the user may specify a user preference that causes thegeneration and/or display of snippets to be suppressed. In someembodiments, when the text matching the search query is located in theheader or other information of the message, the snippet provided is afirst portion of the message.

In some embodiments, if the user selects (e.g., clicks on) a rowrepresenting a conversation in the list of conversations (e.g., a row inthe list of conversations shown in FIG. 7B) (step 712), the conversationassistant 110, at step 714, displays the selected conversation. To dothis, the conversation assistant generates a series of sub-forms hostinga series of messages that are associated with the selected conversation.In particular, if the selected conversation is selected from a list ofconversations produced in response to a user specified search query, thesub-forms whose associated messages do not contain any query term in thesearch query are displayed in a compacted mode while the sub-forms whoseassociated messages contain at least one query term are displayed in anexpanded mode. The conversation assistant 110 also highlights thematched query terms in the message body. An example of the display of aselected conversation that matches a specified query is shown as aschematic screenshot in FIG. 7C. If the selected conversation isselected from a category list of conversations, such as an Inbox list ofconversations, the initial display of the message is as described abovewith respect to FIG. 6C.

FIG. 7B is a schematic screenshot of a browser window listing threeconversations 730 that match the query term “Tahoe” 720. Above the threeconversations 730 is a “Search Options” link 732. The user can click onthe link to update the options that were used to conduct the search. Forexample, the user can specify whether the search is limited toconversations in one category or to conversations in all the categories.When the listed conversations belong to two or more distinct categories,none of the categories in group box 346 are highlighted. Within eachmatching conversation, a snippet that includes the term “Tahoe” 734,736, 738 is identified and displayed with the word “Tahoe” beinghighlighted in each of the three conversations 730. These snippetsindicate that the three conversations cover three distinct topics, i.e.,the first conversation is about a ski trip to Lake Tahoe, the secondconversation is about a Tahoe-model SUV, while the third conversation isabout camping sites at the Tahoe National Forest. Therefore, the usercan use the information in the snippet to decide which particularconversation he wants to open.

FIG. 7C is a schematic screenshot displaying all messages 750 in thethird conversation, labeled “Topic M” 740, after the user clicks on it.Note that an “All Mail” category 741 has been highlighted (in group box346) in this screenshot, indicating that the third conversation “TopicM” 740 is currently located in the “All Mail” 741 category. Since thesecond message includes a query term “Tahoe” 752, the second sub-form isdisplayed in the expanded mode with the word “Tahoe” 752 highlighted.

Spell Checking

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating how the conversation assistantinteracts with a user to correct potentially misspelled words in amessage being composed by a user. After composing a message and beforesending it out, the user may click on the “more actions” pull-down listand select the “spell check” item. Note that this item is not shown inFIG. 4B, because the pull-down list therein only comprisesconversation-level actions. “Spell check” is a message-level action thatis displayed in an pull-down action list only while a messagecomposition form is being used. In response to user selection of the“spell check” action, the conversation assistant sends the composedmessage to the conversation management system and then receives aspell-checked copy of the composed message as well as displayinstructions at step 802. In an alternative embodiment, the actionsperformed by the conversation management system described hereinrelating to the spell checker are performed by the conversationassistant or by a local client application using a local dictionary.Based on the display instructions, the conversation assistant highlightseach potentially misspelled word in the message at step 804, associateswith each highlighted word a list of candidate words generated by thesystem at step 806 and displays the re-formatted message in a separatebrowsing window at step 808. When the user selects a particularhighlighted word in the browsing window, the conversation assistantpositions the user-selected word in a spell correction window andattaches a list of candidate replacement terms next to the window atstep 810. (It should be noted that a replacement term may contain one ormore words.) The conversation assistant then updates the misspelled wordin the spell correction window with the user-specified replacement termin the candidate list at step 812. The conversation assistant can alsoexpand the spell correction window in a user-specified direction at step814 so that the user can revise more than one word within the spellcorrection window at step 816.

FIG. 9A is a screenshot illustrating the same conversation shown in FIG.6C except that the user has composed a reply message 817 to S4. Beforesending the message, the user decides to conduct a spell check.Therefore, the user clicks on the “more actions” pull-down list and thenselects the “Spell Check” item 818. The conversation assistant, inresponse, sends the composed message to the conversation managementsystem and then displays the spell check result in a separate browsingwindow. In some embodiments, the spell check results are displayed inthe same window as the one in which the user was composing the message.In effect, the display remains generally the same except for toggling ofcertain features associated with the spell checker and the highlightingof the potentially misspelled words. This embodiment has the addedbenefit that the user can perform the spell checking within anequivalent visual context that the user was provided when composing themessage rather the user being presented with a separate new windowwithout such context.

FIG. 9B depicts a screenshot comprising three separate browsing windowsat different stages of the spell check process. The first window 820contains a spell-checked copy of the message. In particular, threepotentially misspelled words 821, 823 and 825 have been highlighted inthe window. After the user clicks on the second word 823, the word“delying” is then incorporated into a spell correction window 832 asshown in the second browsing window 830. Further, a list of candidatewords 834 generated by the system are displayed under or adjacent thespell correction window. The user then selects the third replacementterm, “delaying”, to replace the misspelled term “delying”. If the userwants to add the word “temporarily” before the corrected word“delaying”, the user can click on the left arrow 841 (or right arrow843) as shown in the third window 840, position the browser windowpointer to a position in front of the misspelled term “delying,” andthen enter the word “temporarily.” Finally, after correcting all themisspelled words, the user clicks on the “Done” button 845, which causesthe message to be sent to S4.

Conversation Server

The FIGS. 10 through 19 may assist in describing an embodiment of theConversation Server 102 described earlier. One embodiment of theConversation Sever 102 is illustrated in FIG. 10. Conversation Server102 includes Conversation Engine 1002, Updater Engine 1004, MessageIndex 1006, Query Engine 1008, Message Database 1010, one or moreAuxiliary Services servers 1012, Spell Checker 1014, and SMTP 1016.

The Conversation Engine 1002 handles requests from and responses to theConversation Assistant 110, via its connection with CommunicationNetwork 106. Communication Network 106 may include the Internet, one ormore local area networks (LANs), one or more wide are networks (WANs),other types networks, or a combination of such networks. TheConversation Engine is also connected to various auxiliary services suchas Auxiliary Services servers 1012 and Spell Checker 1014. A QueryEngine 1008 is connected to the Conversation Engine 1002, the MessageIndex 1006, and the Message Database 1010. An Updater Engine 1004 isconnected between the Conversation Engine 1002 and Message Index 1006 aswell as Message Database 1010. The SMTP Gateway 1016 is connectedbetween the Conversation Engine 1002 and the Communication Network 106.Although FIG. 10 shows the Conversation Server 102 as a number ofdiscrete items, the figure is intended more as a functional descriptionof the various features which may be present in the Conversation Server102 rather than a structural schematic of the embodiments describedherein. In practice, and as recognized by those of ordinary skill in theart, items shown separately could be combined and some items could beseparated. For example, some items shown separately in the figure couldbe implemented on single servers and single items could be implementedby one or more servers. The actual number of servers in ConversationServer 102 and how features are allocated among them will vary from oneimplementation to another, and may depend in part on the amount of emailtraffic that the system must handle during peak usage periods as well asduring average usage periods.

As briefly mentioned above, the Conversation Engine 1002 may respond toa variety of requests from the Conversation Assistant 110 related tomessages and return conversation-based responses via its connection withthe Communication Network 106. Although, the SMTP Gateway 1016 may alsobe connected to the Communication Network 106, the SMTP Gateway 1016 maybe more directly involved in receiving and sending messages. In someembodiments, the SMTP Gateway 1016, for example, transmits and receivesmessages using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). The SMTPGateway 1016 may receive a new message from the Communication Network106 and send the message to Conversation Engine 1002 for additionalprocessing. Additionally, the SMTP Gateway 1016 receives messages fromthe Conversation Server 1002 and then transmits (via the CommunicationNetwork 106) those messages to the recipient addresses specified in themessages.

The Conversation Engine 1002 may also handle requests for spell checkingof a message that might be being composed. The Conversation Engine 1002sends the portions of the text to be checked to the Spell Checker 1014for spell checking The Spell Checker 1014 returns information includingan identification of the text identified as potentially incorrectlyspelled. In some embodiments, the Spell Checker 1014 providesinformation regarding suggestions for the text identified as potentiallyincorrectly spelled. In some embodiment, this information is sent to theConversation Assistant 110 for subsequent processing.

The one or more Auxiliary Services servers 1012 provide additionalservices to the Conversation Engine 1002. In some embodiments, theauxiliary services servers 1012 include a spam detection module.Operation of the spam detection module is discussed below with referenceto FIG. 11. In some embodiments, the auxiliary services servers 1012include an attachment management module, which manages the efficientstorage and retrieval of files attached to email messages.

An embodiment for processing a received message is shown in FIG. 11. Amessage is received, assigned to a conversation, indexed, assigned oneor more attributes and stored. Initially a message may be received bythe SMTP Gateway 1016, for example, where some processing and handlingmay occur, and may then be passed to the Conversation Engine 1002 (stage1102). The Conversation Engine 1002 may generate a message identifierfor the message. The message identifier may be used to distinguish onemessage from another. In an embodiment, the identifier is a N bit numbercomposed of one or more parts. For example, in an embodiment the messageidentifier may be a 64 bit number consisting of a Y bit (e.g., 32 bit or48 bit) timestamp and a 64-Y bit hash of the message contents. A hash isa mathematical function that maps values from a large domain into asmaller one. One of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that thereare many different ways to create message identifiers that providesufficient information to distinguish messages from each other.

The Conversation Engine 1002 may then parse the message into itsconstituent parts (stage 1104). These parts might include the address ofthe sender, one or recipient addresses, the subject of the message, a“References:” field as that field is described in RFC 2822 (April 2001)described earlier, an “In-Reply-To:” field also described in RFC 2822,the content of the message, or any other information which might becontained in the message. After the message is received, and eitherbefore after parsing the message, the message is passed to a spamchecking module (stage 1105) to determine if the message matches spamcriteria. In some embodiments, the spam checking module worksasynchronously, and in parallel with other processing of the message. Insome embodiments, the spam criteria are designed to determine whether amessage is likely to be an unsolicited message that the user is unlikelyto want to read.

The parsed message is added to a message database (stage 1106). In oneembodiment, the message is added to a message database and notsubsequently modified thereafter, except perhaps for deletion.

Some or all of the parts of the message that are extracted duringparsing of the message may be used to assist in determining theconversation, if any, to which the received message belongs (stage1108). For example, the subject of a message could be compared to othermessages with the same subject since it is likely that messages within aconversation will have the same, or very nearly the same, subject. If amatching conversation has not been found, then the message is associatedwith a new conversation.

After the conversation association has been made, the message is indexedfor searching (stage 1110). In one embodiment all of the text of themessage is indexed along with portions of the header information. Insome embodiments, “noise words” (e.g., words such as “the”, “a” and“or”) in the message body are not indexed, but all other text inrelevant portions of the message are indexed. One of ordinary skill inthe art will recognize that those portions of the message which may besearched should be indexed. As noted below, in some embodimentsinformation concerning attributes associated with the message are addedto the index at a later stage of the message processing

Next, an initial set of attributes is assigned to the message (stage1112). These type of attributes may include, for example, labeling areceived message as “unread” (which typically means that the message hasbeen neither viewed nor marked as read) to indicate that the message isnew. Another attribute that is initially assigned to messages, otherthan messages sent by the user, is the “InBox” attribute. Another set ofattributes that are initially assigned to each message are theuser-defined attributes associated with other messages (if any) in thesame conversation. The user-defined attributes associated with the othermessages in the conversation are determined by searching a conversationdatabase that is described below with reference to FIG. 18. Otherattributes may be initially assigned to the message as well. Theattributes associated with a message may be used to search a messagedatabase to obtain message with similar attributes. For example, asearch could be executed to search for all messages which are labeled as“unread”. Additionally, the attributes of a conversation may be added tothe message since, in one embodiment, a message inherits the attributesof its conversation.

In some embodiments, the attributes associated with messages may includeattributes associated with individual messages, but not necessarily allthe messages in a conversation. For instance, a “Marked for Deletion”attribute (sometimes also called the “Trash” attribute) may beassociated with an individual message in a conversation, while not beingassociated with other messages in the same conversation. Messages markedfor deletion are still stored by the system, and are still associatedwith conversations, but are normally not displayed when thecorresponding conversations are displayed. One or more special views areemployed to enable a user to view messages having the attribute “Markedfor deletion.” Such views afford the user the opportunity to “undelete”a message. On the other hand, in some embodiments, when a user-definedlabel is associated with a conversation, that label is associated withall messages in the conversation. In some other embodiments, when auser-defined label is associated with a conversation, that label isassociated with all messages in the conversation that meet predefinedcriteria (e.g., messages other than those marked for deletion).

Next, any user-defined filters that the user may have established areapplied to the message (stage 1114). Each user-defined filter includes aset of filter conditions and a set of actions. The filter conditionsdefine which messages match the filer and the actions include actionsthat specify labels that are to be added or removed from the message.The filter conditions can include criteria with respect to the sender,the recipients, text in the message subject, text in the message, andthe like. In some embodiments, the actions can include “remove frominbox” (i.e., remove the InBox label from the message, if present),adding a system label (sometimes called a category) to the message, andadding a user-defined label to the message. For instance, the filter mayspecify that all messages having a particular term or combination ofterms be labeled with the “Trash” label. Another filter may specify thatif the term “Lake Tahoe” appears anywhere in the message, a “Vacation”label is to be added to the message.

It may be noted that in some embodiments, stages 1112 and 1114 concernthe assignment of labels to the message being processed. At or about thetime that stages 1112 and 1114 are preformed, the results from the spamchecking module (stage 1105) are retrieved. If the spam checking moduleclassifies the message as spam, a “Spam” label is assigned to themessage and any conflicting labels (e.g., “InBox” or “Trash”) areremoved from the message.

After the set of labels assigned to a message have been established, theindex and certain tables in the Conversation Engine 1002 are updated(stage 1116) to reflect the set of labels assigned to the message. Theindex is updated by adding information indicating the labels to whichthe message is assigned. As a result, an index search on each of thoselabels will produce a list of messages that includes the current messagebeing processed. In addition, at least one table or database in theconversation engine is updated to indicate the set of labels assigned tothe current message being processed. This is described below withreference to FIG. 18.

Finally, an acknowledgment may sent to the sender of the message (stage1118). In some embodiments an acknowledgment may be sent and in othersit may not be sent.

While FIG. 11 shows the stages in a particular order, it is not intendedto limit the order of the stages unduly. In other embodiments, thestages may be differently ordered. For example, the message could beadded to the message database prior to the indexing of the message, thusstage 1114 could be followed by stage 1110. One of ordinary skill in theart would recognize various ways to reorder the stages.

Associating Each Message with a Conversation

Referring to FIG. 12, the following is a more detailed description ofhow a message may be matched with a conversation (stage 1208). After themessage is parsed (stage 1104 of FIG. 11), portions of the constituentparts may be used to formulate a search query for candidateconversations (stage 1202). For example, conversations may be relatedbased on temporal information, sender information, subject information,other information in the header, or system supplied information, or anycombination thereof. One embodiment formulates the search query usingthe subject of the message along with the “References:” and/or the“In-Reply-To:” field. Other embodiments include the sender of themessage or the recipients in the search query. One of ordinary skill inthe art would recognize many different search queries to producemessages which might be related to the current message.

The search query is applied against previously stored messages andcandidate messages are received (stage 1204). The messages, orinformation about the messages, is examined to determine which message(if any) best matches the current message (stage 1206). The conversationto which that message belongs is likely to be the conversation to whichthe current message belongs. A number of different approaches may betaken to determine the conversation to which the current messagebelongs. One approach may use the subject of the current message. It islikely that messages having the same subject belong to the sameconversation. Therefore, a query could be formulated that uses thesubject of the current message. For example, if an incoming message hasthe subject “Where should we go for lunch today?”, it is likely that theconversation (if any) to which this current message belongs will includeone or more messages having the same subject. When comparing subjects,it may be desirable to normalize the subject prior to performing thecomparison. In some embodiments, normalizing the subject includesremoving prefixes such as “Re:” and “Fwd:”, which are commonly added tothe subject by some systems.

It may be desirable, however, to examine more than just the subject. Iftwo messages have the same subject but one was received long before theother, then it is more likely they were not part of the sameconversation. For example, if two messages having the subject “Whereshould we go for lunch today?” were received a month apart, it isunlikely that they were part of the same conversation. Thus, in oneembodiment of the invention, if the normalized subjects of the currentmessage and a message from the candidate conversations match, then anexamination of a date/time value of the messages may be desirable.

Other factors may be considered when matching a message to aconversation such as the recipients, portions of the message content,domain addresses of the sender, or other factors. Those of ordinaryskill in the art will recognize that there are many different ways todetermine the conversation to which a new message belongs. Once thecurrent message is matched up with a satisfactorily matching message,the conversation associated with the matching message may be associatedwith the current message (stage 1208). On the other hand, if nosatisfactory matching message (and, therefore, no conversation) isfound, a new conversation identifier is associated with the message(stage 1208).

In some embodiments, the conversation identifier may be created from theinitial message received in a conversation. For example, a systemprovided message identifier (provided by either the transmitting orreceiving system) of the initial message could server as a conversationidentifier. Subsequent messages are then associated with this messageidentifier which now acts as a conversation identifier. One of ordinaryskill in the art will recognize various features of the initial messagethat could be used to provide a conversation identifier. In someembodiments, the feature should provide some comfort that the value isunique to the initial message so that multiple conversations will not beassigned the same conversation identifier.

As mentioned earlier, after the current message is associated with aconversation (previously existing or newly created) (stage 1208),initial attributes are added (stage 1112). One embodiment for addingthese initial attributes (stage 1112) may be better understood byreferring to FIG. 13. Initially, the sender of the message may beexamined. If the sender of the current message is not the user for whomthis message processing is being performed, it highly likely that thecurrent message has been sent to that user by someone else. Accordingly,if at stage 1302 it is determined that the sender of the current messageis not the user, an initial attribute of “InBox” (also called the InBoxlabel) may be associated with the current message (stage 1304). Anattribute of “InBox” may be used to identify those messages which havebeen sent to the user. For example, in some embodiments a search ofmessages having the “InBox” attribute is used in the production of anInBox view for the user.

In this document, the terms “attribute” and “label” are usedinterchangeably. Also, “associating” a particular attribute with amessage, and “marking” the message with the particular attribute orlabel, are considered to be the same or equivalent operations.

Since it is highly likely that the current message is new, it is alsohighly likely that the user has not viewed this message before.Accordingly, an “Unread” attribute indicating such may be associatedwith the current message (stage 1306). Those or ordinary skill in theart will recognize that message attributes may be implemented in anumber of way to achieve the same result. For example, a predefinedvalue could represent “InBox.” It is sufficient that messages withdesired attributes be searchable based on those attributes. Otherattributes can be associated with messages as well. Attributes may bethought of in a plurality of forms, though the distinction is lessimportant than the ability to search for a particular attribute.Attributes can include system defined attributes, for example, such asInBox, Trash, Spam, All_Documents and Unread. In some embodiments,certain system attributes may be mutually exclusive (e.g., InBox, Trashand Spam). Attributes can also include user defined attributes,sometimes herein called Categories.

If the user was the sender of the message being processed (as determinedat stage 1302), or after any applicable system attributes have beenadded to the message, such as “Unread” (stage 1306), additionalattributes that belong to the conversation are added to the message(stage 1307).

Certain filter criteria may be examined and applied against the incomingmessage (stage 1308). In an embodiment, a user may set up filters thatapply attributes to a received message when predetermined conditions aremet. In another embodiment, the system may apply one or more predefinedfilters to received messages.

If the current message matches filter criteria, then attributes may thenbe applied to the message according to the filter (stage 1310). In oneembodiment, the system provides tools to enable a user to set up afilter such that certain messages are not placed in the “InBox”. Inother words, the filter would cause the “InBox” attribute to be removedfrom the message. In another embodiment, the current message could beassociated with a particular user-defined attribute, such as a labelindicating an area of interest to the user to which one or moreconversation may be associated. For example, an incoming message may beassociated with a conversation having a label “food”, and then a “food”label would be associated with the current message. Generally, a messageinherits the labels of the conversation to which it is associated. Sincea plurality of filters may be applied to received messages, newlyreceived messages as well as their associated conversations may beassociated with more than one user-defined label.

In another embodiment, the user can associate a snooze condition with aconversation. In some embodiments, the snooze condition is associatedwith the conversation when a user specifically commands the system to doso. In some embodiments, a snooze condition is associated with aconversation when a filter matches a message in the conversation. Asnooze condition specifies certain actions to be performed whenever anew message is received in the conversation to which the snoozecondition has been applied. For example, the snooze condition mayprevent the system from associating the InBox label with new messages inthe conversation. More specifically, a user may associate a snoozecondition with a conversation (either directly, or through the operationof a filter) that prevents new messages in the conversation from beingplaced in the user's inbox unless certain trigger conditions aresatisfied. One such trigger condition might be an incoming messageaddressed directly to the user (as the only primary recipient). Anothersuch trigger condition might be the passage of a period of time chosenby the user or the system. Still other trigger conditions could be areceived message containing a specified word or phrase. In thisinstance, when a message satisfying the snooze condition is received,the snooze condition is removed from the conversation and the incomingmessage is marked with the “InBox” label. In some embodiments,additional actions are also taken, such as adding the “InBox” label toother messages in the conversation. In another embodiment, all of themessages in the conversation having an “Unread” label, are labeled withthe “Inbox” label. Accordingly a search of the “InBox” would return thisconversation. In some embodiments, a snooze condition is associated witha conversation by generating a snooze filter that prevents new messagesassociated with a conversation from being marked with the “InBox” labeluntil a predefined event or condition occurs, after which the snoozefilter is deleted or revised.

Another type of filter that may be applied to received messages is a“spam” filter that identifies undesirable messages and marks them with a“Spam” label (i.e., associates the “Spam” attribute with such messages).

FIG. 14 illustrates one embodiment for modifying the attributes of aconversation. The attributes of a conversation may be modified when theconversation, or an incoming message associated with the conversation,matches filter criteria. The attributes of a conversation may also bemodified when the user indicates that the conversation should have aparticular user-defined attribute. For example, the user may designatethat a particular conversation should be associated with a “food”category. In such a case, the conversation (and its respective messages)are marked with a “food” label as to be associated with the “food”attribute. The user may also designate a conversation as marked fordeletion.

In some ways, user-defined attributes can be conceptually compared tofolders. However, embodiments of the present invention allowconversations to be associated with multiple user-defined attributes. Insome embodiments, when a new attribute is associated with aconversation, all messages in the conversation are marked with the newattribute.

Referring to FIG. 14, when a given attribute of a conversation is to bemodified, a search is formulated (stage 1402) to locate the conversation(stage 1404). After the conversation is found (stage 1404), theattribute of the conversation may be modified (stage 1406). The specificmechanisms used to accomplish stages 1402, 1404 and 1406 depend on themechanisms used to associate attributes with conversations. In someembodiments, attributes are associated on a conversation by conversationbasis. For example, the conversation engine may maintain a list ofattributes associated with each particular conversation. Alternately, orin addition, the conversation engine may maintain an index that mapseach defined attribute to all conversations marked with that attribute.Alternatively, in some embodiments the attributes associated with aconversation are associated with the individual messages in theconversation. In such embodiments, the conversation engine may maintainan index that maps each defined attribute to all messages marked withthat attribute, and may further maintain a table or other mechanism formapping each message to the conversations associated with the message.

Many features of the present invention use conversations as the basicunit of information, as opposed to messages. For instance, the InBoxpresents the user with a list of conversations. Some features of thepresent invention use searches to identify conversations to be listed ina plurality of distinct views of the conversations in a user's emailaccount. Searching for conversations and generating a representation ofan identified conversation is described next with reference to FIG. 15.Initially a search query is received (stage 1502). The search query maybe user specified, or system generated (e.g., in response to the userclicking on an “inbox” icon). A search query may be based on a number offactors. The search terms in the search query may come from the user inthe form of words or combination of words. For example, a user couldsearch for messages containing the words “bagel” and “inexpensive” andthe associated conversations, if any, would be returned. A search querycan be generated by the system in response to certain user actions. Forexample, a system generated search query may search for conversationshaving the attribute “InBox” if the user desired an InBox view.

Any combination of searchable terms can be used in a search query. Asmentioned above, searchable terms could include the text of themessages, any attributes associated with the messages, conversations, orheader information associated with a message. In one embodiment,applying the search query to a database of messages returns a set ofmessages (stage 1504). Referring briefly to FIG. 10, this may be done,for example by sending the search query to the Query Engine 1008. TheQuery Engine 1008 may apply the search query to the message index 1006which may return a list of messages. The list of messages may bereceived at stage 1504. If desired, other embodiments might return thelist of messages in a number of different ways, including the return ofa set of message identifiers, document identifiers, all or portions ofmessages, or any combinations thereof.

In some embodiments, searches are run against conversations as a wholerather than against individual messages. Thus, when a query containsfirst and second query terms, one of which is found in a first messageand the other which is found in a second message of the sameconversation, the conversation will be considered to be relevant to thequery, and thus included in the search results. For example, consider aconversation in which the first message solicited ideas for a lunchlocation and a subsequent message, while naming a particular restaurant,did not include the text of the original message. If a user wasinterested in finding that conversation in which the particularrestaurant and lunch were discussed, then the search is more likely toproduce the desired result if it were applied against the text of theentire conversation as if message boundaries within a conversation didnot exit.

Conversations are associated with the set of messages returned at stage1504. A number of methods may be used to identify the associatedconversations. As a message is selected (stage 1506) from the setreturned at stage 1504, the conversation to which the message belongs isidentified (stage 1508). In one embodiment, a data structure whichmatches each message to a conversation may be maintained. If so, anexamination of the data structure entry associated with a particularmessage identifier would identify the conversation to which the messagebelong. It may be that the number of conversations to return as resultset is limited to a predefined number. If so, then processing of the setmessages continues until a sufficient number of conversations areidentified and the results returned. On the other hand, all of theconversations associated with the set of messages returned may beidentified, but only a subset returned.

Once the list of conversations has been created (stage 1510) byidentifying the conversations to which all or a portion of the returnedresults belong, the conversation information is formatted (stage 1512)for return to the requestor (stage 1514). The formatting stage 1512 mayformat a number of different types of information associated with theidentified conversations, the details of which will vary from oneembodiment to another. In some embodiments, the formatting informationis of the type that is recognized by the Conversation Assistant 110 forpresentation of the conversation information to the user.

In some embodiments, conversations in the list of conversationsgenerated at stage 1510 are ordered according to a date/time valueassigned to each conversation in accordance with a predefined rule orset of rules. As explained above, in some embodiments, each conversationin a list of conversations, is assigned a date/time equal to thedate/time of the most recent message that matches the search criteriaused to generate the list of conversations, and the conversations in alist of conversations are ordered (e.g., in reverse chronological order)in accordance with these assigned date/time values. One of ordinaryskill in the art will recognize that there are various other ways toorder and present the conversations in a list of conversations.

In some embodiments, the formatted conversation data representing a listof conversations (generated at stage 1512) includes a count of thenumber of messages included in each conversation in the list ofconversations. In some embodiments, the message count for eachconversation is displayed by the Conversation Assistant 110 to indicateto the user how many message are included in the conversation.

In one embodiment, a concise conversation header is created for eachconversation in the list of conversations (e.g., during stage 1512). Theconversation header may identify a list of the senders of messages inthe conversation. This list may contain all or a subset of the senderswithin the conversation. In some embodiments, the list of senders isformatted so as to visually distinguish those senders who have sent amessage (in the conversation) that is currently labeled as “Unread” bythe user. In another embodiment, the Conversation Assistant 110 presentsthese senders in a different format from the other senders. For example,senders of the “Unread” messages may be identified using bolded orhighlighted text.

In another embodiment, the list of senders of messages (in the conciseconversation header) may be processed by replacing the name or addressof the user with a self-referencing identifier. As a result, when thelist of senders for a conversation is displayed, instead of displayingthe user's name or other identifying information similar to senders whoare not the user, the self-referencing identifier (e.g., “me”) isdisplayed. Other types of self-referencing identifiers could be used todistinguish the viewing user from the other users.

In another embodiment, the concise conversation header for each messagein the list of conversations may including information that indicateshow the user received the message. In other words, the information mayspecifically identify how the user was sent the message. For example,the user might be sent the message directly, the user might be copied onthe message, the user might be copied blindly on the message, or theuser might be part of a distribution list to which the message was sent.One or more of these various ways the user received the message might beindicated to the user. For example, if the user was sent a messagedirectly, an iconic representation could be used (such as “>”) to soindicate when presenting the conversation to the user.

In some embodiments, the concise information header for each message inthe list of conversations includes a snippet of the conversationcontent, the snippet including information for displaying text matchingthe search terms in bold and also including text surrounding thematching text formatted in a normal font. When the list of conversationsis generated for the inbox or other system category, the snippetincludes text from the conversation selected in accordance withpredefined criteria. In some embodiments, the snippet contains text fromthe beginning of a most recent message in the conversation, while inanother embodiment the snippet contains text automatically selected tobe indicative of the conversation content.

In another embodiment, when the user selects for viewing a particularconversation from among the conversations matching a search query, theconversation engine may generate conversation information indicatingwhich messages in the conversation match the query and which do not. Theconversation information may further include a portion of text of themessages which match the search query. This conversation information maybe formatted for display to the user. The conversation information mayinclude matching messages formatted for display in an expanded mode andnon-matching messages formatted for display in a compacted mode. Varioustypes of information may be presented to the user in the expanded mode,including any combination of all or portions of the following: headerinformation, content information, text matching the search query, andtext surrounding the search query. In some embodiments, when one or moremessages matching the search query are displayed in the compacted mode(e.g., in response to the user selecting a “compact all messages” buttonor option), the information displayed for such messages in the compactedmode includes a snippet of the message content, the snippet includinginformation for displaying text matching the search terms in bold andalso including text surrounding the matching text formatted in a normalfont.

In yet another embodiment, the conversation information may indicatewhen certain users have been added or removed from a conversation. Forexample, if a user had been included on messages in a conversation up toa point in time and then no longer included, the information for one ormore subsequent messages might indicate that that user was no longerpart of the conversation. The Conversation Assistant might do this, forexample, by using a font to display the user's name which is differentfrom the font used to display the names of those users who are stillparticipating in the conversation. The Conversation Assistant might usea “ghost” font for this purpose.

The conversation information may also provide information about theintroduction of a new participant to the conversation. For instance, theinformation concerning the first message that includes the newparticipant may including formatting information for distinctivelydisplaying the new participant's name. This information may be displayedto the user by the Conversation Assistant such that the newly addedsender's name or other identifying information appears in bold or someother visually distinctive presentation format.

The conversation information may also include information about spellchecking The information might include an indication as to which wordsthe Spell Checker 1014 identified as potentially incorrectly spelled, aswell as information relating to suggestions for the correct spelling.

FIG. 16 provides an illustration of a format for storing messagesaccording to one embodiment of the invention. When the message is storedin a message database (stage 1114 of FIG. 11), it may be stored asillustrated in FIG. 16. A Message Database 1602 may store informationabout the messages, for example Message 1 (1604) through Message x(1606), where x represents the number of messages corresponding to aparticular user. In one embodiment, each user's messages are stored in aMessage Database 1602 unique to that user. In another embodiment,messages belonging to more than one user may be stored in the sameMessage Database 1602. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognizemany ways to prevent messages from one user showing up as messagesbelong to another. In still another embodiment, messages from more thanone user may be stored in a Message Database 1602, with only one storageentry per message such that multiple users would reference a single copyof a message.

In one embodiment, a Message (e.g., Message 1608) may include HeaderInformation 1612, Content 1614, and Attachments 1616. Header Information1614 may include the header information of the message including, forexample, information identifying the sender and recipients, a time/datevalue of the message, and the subject. Other information might also beincluded in the Header Information such as that described in RFC 2822.The Content 1614 may contain the content of the message. The Content1614 may include text and/or other types of content (e.g., images orpictures). Attachment 1616 may be the contents of any informationattached to a particular message. For example, a document attached to amessage might be located in this part of Message 1610. Those of ordinaryskill in the art would recognize other ways to store the messageinformation. For example, an attachment might be stored in anotherstorage structure and a reference to it located in Attachments 1616.

In an alternate embodiment, all the messages for each conversation arestored as a single record, document or data structure in the messagedatabase.

User, Message and Conversation Data Structures

FIG. 17 illustrates a user database and message index according to anembodiment of the invention. A User Database 1702 may store informationabout users. The information stored may include User Information 1704.User Information 1704 might contain various types of user informationrelating to user preferences, security information, or any otherinformation that might be used by the various embodiments of theinvention. The User Database might include user identificationinformation used to identify the users such as User ID (1) (1706) toUser ID (m) (1708) where m might represent the number of users of thesystem. A particular User ID (m) (1708) might be a unique identifier foreach user such as a n-bit binary number. Other type of useridentification might also be used.

In some embodiments, the User ID of a user is used to identify a set ofdata structures 1720 for storing information about the filters, queriesand labels associated with a user's mail account. In some embodiments,these data structures include a query cache 1722 for storing informationrepresenting the last few queries submitted by the user; a set of filterdata structures 1724 for storing user-defined filters, if any; and alabels data structure 1726 for storing information representinguser-defined labels. The recent queries represented by informationstored in the query cache 1722 may be presented to the user, for examplein group box 348 (FIG. 3B), to enable the user to easily re-submit thesequeries to the conversation management system. The user-defined filtersare used by the conversation management system during the processing ofeach new message as it is being added to the user's mail account. Thestored information concerning user-defined labels may be presented tothe user, for example in a group box 347 (FIG. 3B), to enable the userto easily request a list of conversations bearing a user-selected label.

The User ID of a user may be used to identify a Full Text and AttributesIndex 1710 corresponding to the user. A Full Text and Attributes Index1710 might be associated with a particular user such that a differentuser cannot search the index for the messages associated with theparticular user. The Full Text and Attributes Index 1710 storesinformation about messages in the user's mail account such that a queryapplied against the Full Text and Attributes Index 1710 returns a listof matching messages (if any). The list might be returned as a list ofmessage identifiers.

The information included in the Full Text and Attributes Index 1710 fora particular message may include the message's Message ID 1712, thecontent 1714 of the message 1714, and information about the attributes1716 of the message. The Message ID 1712 is a unique identifier for themessage (i.e., unique with respect to all other messages stored for thesame user). The Message ID 1712 may be a n-bit number that is used toreference a particular message stored in the Message Database 1702. Inone embodiment, the Message ID 1712 may be a 64-bit number. The MessageID 1712 might be composed of timestamp information and informationrelating to the content of the message to which the Message ID 1712refers. The timestamp information might be a Y-bit (e.g., 32-bit or48-bit) timestamp provided by the system indicating when a message isreceived by, for example, the SMTP Gateway 1018. The informationrelating to the content of the message might be 64-Y bit hash of themessage contents.

The contents of a message are placed into the index as fully indexed andsearchable terms. When the index 1710 is searched for a term orcombination of terms, the index returns a list of messages (e.g.,message IDs) of messages that match the term or combination of terms.Certain predefined conditions may dictate a return of less than all ofthe matching messages. In another embodiment, the index 1710 returns alist of conversations (conversation IDs) that match the term orcombination of terms in a query.

In one embodiment the entries for the search terms in the Full Text andAttributes Index 1710 are be ordered in accordance with the timestampinformation included in the Message ID 1712 of each indexed message,such that the most recent messages matching the search terms arepreferentially returned. For instance, the list of Message IDs ofmessages corresponding to each term in the index 1710 may be orderedsuch that Message IDs having the most recent timestamps are listedearlier in the list than Message IDs having older timestamps. In otherembodiments, date/time information associated with each messageindicates the date and/or time of receipt of each message, but thedate/time information is not embedded in the Message IDs. In suchembodiments, the entries in the index 1710 are nevertheless arranged sothat the Message IDs of messages having the most recent date/time valuesare listed earlier in the list than Message IDs having older date/timevalues.

Any attributes 1716 associated with a message are also indexed (i.e.,included in the index 1710). Attributes 1716 are added to the Full Textand Attributes Index 1710 such that a query on a particular attributereturns those messages matching that particular attribute. When a labelor attribute is added to or removed from a conversation, the index 1710is updated accordingly. The index includes entries or data that map eachdefined label or attribute to all the messages (or, in otherembodiments, conversations) bearing that label or attribute. Thus, whena label is added to a conversation, data is added to the index 1710 tomap that label to all the messages in the conversation. When a label isremoved from a conversation, the data in the index that maps the labelto the messages in the conversation is removed or invalidated. In someembodiments, each label or attribute associated with a conversation isalso added to one or more entries in a conversation database 1808 (FIG.18).

Although the Full Text and Attributes Index 1710 may configured to mapquery terms to individual Message IDs 1712, other data structures may beprovided to map Message IDs into conversations identifiers. Logicaldiagrams of one such set of data structures are shown in FIG. 18. One ofordinary skill in the art would recognize that a number of differentdata structures can be used to map search query terms to conversationsor conversation identifiers.

As described earlier, User Database 1702 may contain a User ID 1708 thatreferences the Full Text and Attributes Index 1710 associated with aparticular user. Referring to FIG. 18, a particular Message ID 1712 maybe associated with a particular Conversation ID 1802 in a Message toConversation Map 1804. Each entry in Message to Conversation Map 1804associates (i.e., maps) a Message ID 1712 to a Conversation ID 1802. Insome embodiments, the Conversation ID 1804 is an n-bit number. Thisnumber uniquely identifies the particular conversation to which themessage identified by Message ID 1712 belongs. In these embodiments,every conversation in a user's mail account has a distinct ConversationID.

To identify the other messages associated with a particularconversation, a User Conversation Database 1808 may be used. Such adatabase might be used, for example, when identifying the remainder ofthe messages included in a conversation where one or more messages hadmatched a particular search query. User Conversation Database includes anumber of Conversation Entries 1810. Each Conversation Entry 1810 storesa list of the messages (or other data structure representing themessages) associated with the conversation. For example, a ConversationEntry 1812 may include a linked list of message entries 1816, eachmessage entry corresponding to a particular message in the conversation.The linked list might be ordered by, for example, date/time valuesassociated with the messages in the conversation. An exemplary messageentry 1816 includes the Message ID 1712, Header 1818, and Labels 1820 ofa particular message. The Header 1818 may contain all or a portion ofthe Header Information 1612 described earlier. The Labels 1820 maycontain information identifying certain attributes associated with themessage. The Message ID(4) 1712 of a particular entry 1822 may beassociated with a particular message in the Message Database 1602. Insome embodiments, the message entry 1816 does not include the content ofthe body of the corresponding message.

In some embodiments, the information in the index 1708 and theinformation in a Conversation Entry 1812 may be used to assist inassociating a new message with a particular conversation, as might bedone in stage 1106 of FIG. 11, without accessing the Message database1602. When messages are identified as possible matches to the newlyarrived message (stage 1204 of FIG. 12), the determination of the bestmatching message, and thus the best matching conversation, could be madeusing the Headers 1818 of the matching messages. For example, Header1818 might contain subject information for the message that (innormalized form) can be compared to the normalized subject of the newlyarrived message. Other information in the Header 1818 can also becompared with header information of an incoming message being processed.Once a conversation has been identified as a match, attributesidentified in the Labels 1820 of the message entries for the identifiedconversation can be applied to the incoming message (stage 1307 of FIG.13), without having to retrieve any messages from the message database.

A Conversation entry 1812 can be updated when a message is deleted froma conversation, without affecting the other messages in a conversation.In such a case, the message entry 1816 (in Conversation entry 1812)corresponding to the message to be deleted is deleted from the linkedlist of message entries. Thus, the message will no longer be associatedwith that conversation. In some embodiments, Message to Conversation Map1804 is also be modified to account for the deletion.

As described earlier, in some instances it may be desirable to mark amessage for deletion, but not remove it from the conversation using, forexample, a particular attribute. When the conditions are such that themessage may now be removed from the conversation, it may be done asdescribed above. Conditions which may allow for the removal of themessage from Message to Conversation Map 1802 and Conversation entry1812 might include the passing of a certain amount of time since themessage was marked for deletion, an action by the user, or othertriggering events.

Conversations may also be marked for deletion, but not yet removed fromthe user's mail account. When a conversation is to be permanentlyremoved from the user's mail account, then the Message to ConversationMap 1802 entry for the conversation may be removed. In addition, thecorresponding Conversation entry 1812 may be removed from theConversation Database 1808, and furthermore the index entries for themessages in the conversation may be removed from the index 1708.

As indicated above, in another embodiment the full text message index1708 returns a list of conversation identifiers in response to a query.In this embodiment, the Message to Conversation Map 1802 may be omitted.Instead, the Conversation Database provides the main mappings needed tocomplete the processing of conversations responsive to the query.

Referring to FIG. 19, an embodiment of a Conversation Server 102 thatimplements the methods described above includes one or more processingunits (CPU's) 1902, one or more network or other communicationsinterfaces 1904, memory 1906, and one or more communication buses 1908for interconnecting these components. The Conversation Server 102 mayoptionally include a user interface comprising a display device and akeyboard. Memory 1906, or a portion thereof, comprises a computerreadable storage medium and may include high speed random access memoryand may also include non-volatile memory, such as one or more magneticor optical storage disks. Memory 1906 may include mass storage that isremotely located from CPU's 1902. The Memory 1906 may store:

an Operating System 1916 that includes procedures for handling variousbasic system services and for performing hardware dependent tasks;

a Network Communication Module (or instructions) 1918 that is used forconnecting the Conversation Server 102 to other computers via the one ormore communications Network Interfaces 1904 (wired or wireless), such asthe Internet, other wide area networks, local area networks,metropolitan area networks, and so on; and

a Conversation Engine 1002 module for responding to requests from, andproviding responses to, the Conversation Assistant 110 as describedearlier, and may include:

a Process New Message Module 1920 for processing new messages asdescribed earlier;

a Search Module 1922 for searching a user's messages as describedearlier, the Search Module 1922 including a module for processing searchrequests from inputs supplied by the user 1922 and a module forprocessing system generated searches 1926 initiated by the ConversationAssistant 110;

a Conversation Assistant Loader 1928 for providing to the ConversationAssistant 110 information that allows the Conversation Assistant toprocess information supplied to it from the Conversation Server 102. Insome embodiments, when a client computer is first connected to theConversation Server 102 for processing email messages, the ConversationAssistant Loader 1928 is invoked to load the Conversation Assistant 110to the client computer. In some embodiments, the Conversation AssistantLoader 1928 loads the Conversation Assistant 110 onto the clientcomputer each time that an email session is initiated, while in otherembodiments the Conversation Assistant 110 is retained by the clientcomputer from one email session to another;

a Reply Formatting Module 1930 for providing formatting information tobe supplied to the Conversation Assistant 110 as described earlier,including a Conversation Ordering Module 1932 for ordering conversationsaccording to predefined criteria as described earlier, a SelectConversations Module 1034 for selecting a predetermined number ofconversations to be returned to the Conversation Assistant 110 from thetotal number which could be returned, an Identify Sender of Unread/NotViewed Messages 1936 for identifying messages marked as “Unread” (i.e.,messages not viewed or marked as read) messages as described earlier, aSelf-referencing Module 1938 for providing information about replacingthe user's identification with a self-referencing information asdescribed earlier, a New Recipients Module 1940 for identifying andproviding information about newly added recipients to a conversation asdescribed earlier, a Removed Recipients Module 1942 for identifying andproviding information about recipients who are no longer part of theconversation as described earlier, a Snippet Module 1944 for obtainingand providing information about certain text of a matching message asdescribed earlier, a Full Text Module 1946 for retrieving the full textof a message for transmission to the Conversation Assistant 110 asdescribed earlier; and a Format Spell Check Module 1948 for formattinginformation returned from the Spell Checker 1014;

a Modify Attributes Module 1950 for modifying the attributes ofconversations and messages as described earlier;

a Delete/Remove Module 1952 for marking message or conversation fordeletion and subsequently removing them as described earlier;

Filter Module 1954 for creating, monitoring, and carrying out filters asdescribed earlier; and

a Compose/Send Module 1956 for allowing the user to compose a messageand provide the resulting message to the SMTP Gateway 1016.

It should be appreciated that various features described above, such asan exemplary embodiment of a spell check processing and display method,are not limited to electronic messaging or email. For example, the spellchecking method or user interface described above may be applied to andimplemented in conjunction with various types of documents (e.g., wordprocessing documents) in other embodiments.

The foregoing description, for purpose of explanation, has beendescribed with reference to specific embodiments. However, theillustrative discussions above are not intended to be exhaustive or tolimit the invention to the precise forms disclosed. Many modificationsand variations are possible in view of the above teachings. Theembodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain theprinciples of the invention and its practical applications, to therebyenable others skilled in the art to best utilize the invention andvarious embodiments with various modifications as are suited to theparticular use contemplated.

1. A computer-implemented method performed at a server system having oneor more processors and memory, the method comprising: responding to asingle search query from a respective user, including: searching amessage repository to identify a plurality of conversations associatedwith the respective user, wherein each of the plurality of conversationsincludes at least one message relevant to the search query, and each ofthe plurality of the identified conversations includes one or moremessages sharing a common set of characteristics that meet predefinedcriteria; sending a list of conversations representing at least a subsetof the identified conversations, wherein at least one of theconversations in the list includes a plurality of messages; andproviding content of a selected conversation from the list ofconversations including formatting information that visuallydifferentiates between first messages of the selected conversation andsecond messages of the selected conversation, wherein the first messagesare relevant to the search query and the second messages are notrelevant to the search query.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein theformatting information comprises formatted text.
 3. The method of claim1, wherein the messages that are relevant to the search query are themessages that include text matching the search query.
 4. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the formatting information comprises highlighting thetext matching the search query in the first messages.
 5. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the formatting information comprises formatting thefirst messages in an expanded format and formatting the second messagesin a compacted format.
 6. A computer-implemented method performed at aserver system having one or more processors and memory, the methodcomprising: responding to user selection, by a respective user, of aconversation from a list of conversations that are associated with therespective user and that are relevant to a search query from therespective user, including: providing content of the selectedconversation including formatting information that differentiatesbetween one or more first messages in the selected conversation relevantto the search query from one or more second messages in the selectedconversation not relevant to the search query, wherein the selectedconversation includes a plurality of messages, the plurality of messagessharing a common set of characteristics that meet predefined criteria.7. The method of claim 6, wherein the formatting information comprisesformatted text.
 8. The method of claim 6, wherein the messages that arerelevant to the search query are the messages that include text matchingthe search query.
 9. The method of claim 6, wherein the formattinginformation comprises highlighting the text matching the search query inthe first messages.
 10. The method of claim 6, wherein the formattinginformation comprises formatting the first messages in an expandedformat and formatting the second messages in a compacted format.
 11. Aconversation-based message system, comprising: a server comprising oneor more processors and memory, the memory storing: a message databasethat stores messages and associated information, including conversationinformation; and one or more programs configured for execution by theone or more processors, the programs including instructions for:matching at least one of a plurality of received messages to aconversation in a plurality of conversations, each of the plurality ofconversations having one or more messages sharing a common set ofcharacteristics that meet predefined criteria; returning a list ofconversations in response to a search query, wherein at least one of theconversations in the list includes a plurality of messages; associatingformatting information with at least one of the conversations in thelist of conversations, wherein the formatting information visuallydifferentiates between one or more first messages in the conversationrelevant to the search query from one or more second messages in theconversation not relevant to the search query; and transmitting the listof conversations and the formatting information.
 12. The system of claim11, wherein the formatting information comprises formatted text.
 13. Thesystem of claim 11, wherein the messages that are relevant to the searchquery are the messages that include text matching the search query. 14.The system of claim 11, wherein the formatting information compriseshighlighting the text matching the search query in the first messages.15. The system of claim 11, wherein the formatting information comprisesformatting the first messages in an expanded format and formatting thesecond messages in a compacted format.
 16. A computer-implemented methodperformed at a server system having one or more processors and memory,the method comprising: receiving a search query from a client computer;responding to the search query, including: searching a messagerepository to identify a plurality of conversations associated with arespective user of the client computer, wherein each of the plurality ofconversations includes at least one message relevant to the searchquery, each of the plurality of the identified conversations includesone or more messages sharing a common set of characteristics that meetpredefined criteria, and at least one of the identified conversationsincludes a plurality of messages; selecting at least a subset of theidentified conversations; for each conversation in the selected set ofconversations: creating a snippet of the conversation content; and foreach snippet having a respective portion that matches the search query,creating highlighting information for the respective portion of thesnippet; wherein the respective portion of each snippet that matches thesearch query is less than the entire snippet for at least one of theselected conversations; and sending information representing theselected conversations, corresponding snippets, and correspondinghighlighting information to the client computer.